A high-level meeting Tuesday in Toronto to discuss Highway 3 through Essex County, in particular, the promised widening of the highway that has stalled.
Lakeshore Mayor and County Warden, Tom Bain, was there with Essex Mayor Ron McDermott, County Engineer Tom Bateman and the County CAO Rob Maisonville.
They are in attending the Good Roads Association Conference where they met with Ontario Transportation Minister Katherine McGarry and her staff:
Bain told AM800's The Afternoon News, they brought new data to the meeting to show that collisions have increased between Essex and Leamington.
"Data concerning recent accidents, and that there have been a total of 5 deaths in the area, besides the high number of accidents compared to the reduction in accidents in the Windsor to Essex corridor where they have 4 lanes," he says pointing to the data from Essex-Windsor EMS.
"The amount of vehicular traffic has also increased so the safety problem that was there is not getting better," he says. "It's getting worse."
Bain says the minister and her staff were very receptive to hearing new data on collisions and data concerning the economic value of the road in light of the booming greenhouse industry and agricultural industry, along with the increase in exports going to Florida, Georgia and California.
He reminded the minister that the project began with the late MPP Bruce Crozier and it was planned for a widening from Windsor to Leamington but it got dropped after two phases of widening.